"The
pileup of coincidences makes this film
inevitably seem like a car wreck... ."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A painfully awkward psychological drama that's based
on a newspaper headline type of story that veers into
the higher realm of being a moral parable about
redemption. It works and it doesn't work, depending on
how you approach it. It does move beyond a banal soap
opera story due mainly to the finely tuned
performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo, who
convincingly portray grief-stricken fathers who must
deal with their pain and are having life-altering
experiences trying to get a grip on themselves. Yet
it's so manipulated that the dramatics come in for
some rather mawkish moments and cries of disbelief.
Novelist John Burnham Schwartz adapts it from his own
acclaimed novel from 1998, while under Terry George's
("Hotel Rwanda") 'hands off the merchandise'
restrained direction the film nevertheless poignantly
shows how in a moment of weakness almost anybody can
become a criminal by making a wrong decision and also
how from the deepest hurt a change for the better is
possible.

A divorced Connecticut lawyer Dwight Arno (Mark
Ruffalo), returning his adolescent son Lucas to his
nagging argumentative remarried ex-wife Ruth Wheldon
(Mira Sorvino) after a weekly visitation day that had
the two bond by attending an extra-inning night game
in Boston's Fenway Park, tragically kills the
10-year-old Josh Learner, the son of a local professor
Ethan Learner (Joaquin Phoenix), in a hit-and-run
accident with his SUV when Josh leaves the parked car
by a gas station to go to the side of the road to free
some fireflies from a jar. In a far-fetched scenario,
the grieving Ethan is not satisfied with the police's
efforts after a week of no results and hires Dwight as
his lawyer to light a spark under the investigators
and for a possible civil law suit.

The tragedy deeply shakes up both dads; the
professor goes from being an ideal family man to
neglecting his wife Grace (Jennifer Connelly)
and his young daughter Emma, as he obsessively hunts
down his son Josh's killer. At the same time, the
lawyer is guilt-ridden and vows to pay more attention
to his son and hopes that his son will learn to
respect him. The professor does eventually track down
Dwight and confronts him at gunpoint before letting
him go. A contrite Dwight somehow gains our sympathy
(despite there being no excuse for his leaving the
scene of the accident) as he not only learns how to
become a better father but turns himself into the
police to face the law.

The pileup of coincidences makes this film
inevitably seem like a car wreck, but if you possibly
can get over its many artificial and demanding moments
I think you will find something humming that makes it
run maybe not like a shiny new BMW but at least like
an old Volks.